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Topic: Dough for Calzone that you can freeze (Read 1293 times)

My wife is lactose intoleran, but Bufalo mozzarella and ricotta is very low in lactose and she can tolerate it.

She can order bufalo ricotta (but has to get it in bulk) and she'd like to make some calzones, that she can freeze, thaw, and bake as needed.

I tried making my regular Neopolitain pizza dough recipe (cold ferment for 72 hours made with culture and a bit of instant yeast). I let the dough come to room temperature for 2 hours, then she made calzones, and froze them (wrapped in wax paper and then foil).

We cooked the first one, and the crust came out pretty chewy.

Besides this experiment, I have ZERO experience with making dough, freezing, and then baking.

Can anyone share any tips on how to make a calzone that can be frozen, thawed, and then cooked so it has a decent crust and texture?

If it was me, I'd bake the calzones and then freeze them. I also don't think I'd want to do it with a Neapolitan dough. Calzone dough should be a bit drier than standard pizza dough, you don't want a lot of oven rise with calzones, otherwise you get big air holes which are likely to burst while cooking. Wet doughs give off too much steam while cooking and that's not good when cooking calzones. Just my 2 cents, I've never frozen calzones, but I'd rather do that then freeze my fresh dough.

I always bake them off first and then freeze them. Also, when I reheat them I throw them in the oven while still frozen, loosely wrapped in foil for the first half of heating and then I open up the foil for the remainder of the time.